Joe Scarborough: 'MSNBC is moving back to the type of news channel it was supposed to be .. NBC News on cable'

Joe Scarborough says it's the best of times for him at MSNBC. During a Friday stop in Orlando, he credited the "Morning Joe" team, especially Mika Brzezinski, and the renewed commitment to hard news at MSNBC.

"I celebrate that change. I embrace that change," said Scarborough, 52. "MSNBC is moving back to the type of news channel it was supposed to be when it first started, which is NBC News on cable."

"Morning Joe," which airs 6 to 9 a.m. weekdays, is especially popular in Orlando. Brzezinski brought her "Know Your Value" tour to Central Florida on Friday, and Scarborough took part in the event that teaches women to negotiate for their worth in the workplace.

"What we've found is that Mika and Joe draw a lot more than just Mika or just Joe," Scarborough said. "I think that teamwork, that chemistry has been the key to everything."

He attributed the show's improvements to Brzezinski. "I think it's gotten better because Mika has had eight and a half years to work on me," he said. "People sometimes will say I interrupt and I talk too much. I say, 'Go back and look at tapes from 2008, 2009.' It's unwatchable."

With time, the show has come to understand its identity and its audience, Scarborough said. "We're not CNN lite, we're not judged by the number of news stories that we go through," he said.

Rather, the conversation drives "Morning Joe." "People want to hear our opinions," he said. "They want us to talk about what we're thinking about. They don't want it filtered. They want it to be real."

That conversation is usually about politics, and Scarborough, who served as a Republican congressman from Florida, is blunt about presidential politics.

"The Republicans are running out of time to stop Trump," Scarborough said. "If Donald Trump wins Iowa, chances are good Donald Trump is on his way to winning the nomination. It's a lot like Barack Obama in 2008."

Scarborough described the GOP as "breaking apart from within" and added "it's almost impossible for the Republican establishment to connect with Republican primary voters," who have turned to Trump and Ben Carson.

"Republicans are just generally frustrated that they've been lied to the past 30 years by the people they elect," he said. "I will tell you right now I'm pretty fed up with the Republican Party, especially the Republican Party out of Washington, because they've made promises that they just haven't kept. When I see Republican-sounding politicians using the same lines that Ronald Reagan used in 1979, I just roll my eyes and say, 'Come on, guys. Move on.'"

But that doesn't mean automatic good things for the Democrats. "I don't know who ends up getting through the Republican primaries, but I know Hillary Clinton is going to be a challenging candidate for Democrats to elect," Scarborough said.

Being the designated Republican on a channel often dismissed as left-leaning hasn't been easy. "It's been lonely, a lonely 11 years, but over the past year especially, I’ve felt much more comfortable," he said.

He called Andy Lack, chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, and Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, a great team and praised them for shifting MSNBC's focus to hard news. "It’s a commitment that makes Mika and me much more comfortable telling people that we're working at MSNBC," he said. "It pays dividends for everybody."

"Morning Joe" was focused Friday on news from Mali and Paris. "Of course we would have loved to fight about for Trump for three hours, but we had a breaking news event," Scarborough said.

Scarborough said he is thrilled that Brian Williams, who was demoted from "NBC Nightly News," is now anchoring at MSNBC. "For us, Brian is a huge win," Scarborough said. Williams is "too good of a journalist just to be thrown out to the wolves," he added.

As senior political analyst for NBC News, Scarborough will appear on "Meet the Press" regularly and work election nights for NBC and MSNBC.

Scarborough, who now lives in Connecticut, said he didn't know if he would run for office again.

"I'm really happy where I am, and I certainly know I'm under contract with NBC through 2018," he said. "I'm happier at MSNBC now than at any time. That may not be saying much, because there have been some rough times at MSNBC in years past. But actually it is saying a lot."